Just as I began to
smile again,
say “I am diabetic” with a matter-of-fact tone,
establish a routine,
learn how to count carbs,

Just as I began to
feel more like my old self,
dance again,
listen to music and daydream

Just as I began NOT to
fear dying in my sleep from a diabetic attack,
cry more in a week than I laugh,
let this diagnosis take my spirit,

Just as all these changes were being made
I lose my home.

The tornadoes that swept through and swept away large chucks of the country from Oklahoma, Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, to Mississippi were horrific.

It had only been two months.
2 months.
Exactly one day LESS than two months (if I get technical).

February 15th (Entered ER, diagnosed with diabetes, reside in the hospital for six days)
April 16th (Leave for work around 8:00am and return home at 4:30 to the shocking discovery that my home is barely there)

I crumbled from the inside out when I saw my apartment complex. I felt just like those buildings- ravished, torn, broken, and barely able to stand.

My mother and grandmother flew into town the next morning and the two of them are nursing my spirit because my personal resilience reservoir was used up to bounce back from the diagnosis.

I’ve been emotionally shipwrecked. I am bent, battered, and bruised, but not broken.

In the past three weeks, I’ve lost my home, been living in a hotel, gone to a church’s food bank for help (and treated rudely), had the red cross shut it’s door in my face, stood in the FEMA line for assistance with others who were affected too, had my clothes washed by TIDES LOADS OF HOPE (what a blessing that was), had to grab whatever items I could out of my home, keep working, and remember that I’m diabetic and must maintain a routine or risk going back into the hospital.

This is the kind of pain that a medical physician’s remedy can’t cure.  There are no herbs or pills that can make me smile from my soul, dance from my core, and restore my joy.

And yet, He still keeps me.  I missed the tornado by five minutes all because I stopped by the pharmacy to fill my diabetic prescriptions.  Had I not stopped, I would have been home and physically injured or dead. God keeps on keeping me and I am praying that I fulfill His purpose for my life.